2011 Chilean Carmenere

[gush]

Would we be talking about this fall during the possible group buy? Or in a year or so when our wines are all done? Did you talk to anyone about quantitys and discounts?

 

[joea132]

If you guys want to get together this summer as CT Area Wine Makers I would be in. I was thinking for swapping bottles of wine though. I know it's way out of the way for alot of you guys but there are wine festivals all over. Maugle Sierra (Ledyard and possibly the best in the state) does one the third weekend in June and there is the CT Wineries festival in Goshen sometime in July where every winery in the state shows up. I'm going to both either way so we could make this our first official meet and greet!

 

[roblloyd]

I'm up for a meet - City Steam then if we want something afterwards they have the comedy club there. It's also closer to MA if any of them would like to join us.

We're busy most of June but any wine fests after that would be good, even better if they are kid friendly and I don't have to arrange for someone to watch them.

 

[joea132]

Lets talk about this later on down the line. I smell a new thread about to be born!

 

[gush]

Joe, Maugle Sierra is literally less then 5 minutes away. I am signed up for their special events e-mails and haven't seen a wine festival yet. I will definatly keep an eye out. Their St. Croix is amazing! I've actually volunteered my help over there come harvest time (and whenever for that matter). I've also volunteered at a vineyard down the road that sells their grapes to Maugle Sierra. I hope both places gve me a call for help because I'd really like to get some hands on experience with the grapes because my plan is to establish my own vines at my new house.

Edit: Sorry for being off-topic here. You're right, this should be in a new thread.

 

[joea132]

I've been keeping a steady log throughout my winemaking process so far. Check the first post and feel free to comment or tell me if I could do anything differently/better. It's updated to today (6/27/11).

 

[gush]

Joe,

Have you done anything else to your wine recently? We have been bulk aging, been a few months since we tasted it (when it came off oak) so we are due to taste it again here soon. My two small 1-lug batches seem to have gone bad (atleast 1 of them). One of the batches has an odd oil slick like film on top and it didnt smell to great when i had racked it off of oak.

We are starting two 2011 chilean cab sav 5-gal frozen musts right now and splitting it to 2/3rds d254 and 1/3rd rp-15.

looking forward to doing some more wine this fall, maybe a white this time.

 

[Rock]

I've been keeping a steady log throughout my winemaking process so far. Check the first post and feel free to comment or tell me if I could do anything differently/better. It's updated to today (6/27/11).

Hey Joe just wondering why so long on the skins?Am i counting right 37 days till you pressed?How long is normal for extended maceration?How does your wine taste now a couple months later?Thanks for all the info and pitchers.

 

[joea132]

Hey Joe just wondering why so long on the skins?Am i counting right 37 days till you pressed?How long is normal for extended maceration?How does your wine taste now a couple months later?Thanks for all the info and pitchers.

Rock, I was trying an extended maceration to try and get those long soft tannins that I really like. I was careful and inerted and shrinkwrapped my primary while doing so. I tasted every few days and as the tannins grew stronger and stronger, I tasted every day waiting for the drop off. When the tannins softened up they did so dramatically, like withing 2 days, and it turned out very good.

I will say that I believe this was a contributing factor to my H2S problem and I probably won't use it for the Cali grapes but I did get some very good results out of it. Even if it was risky.